A common problem that arises when securing the upper of a shoe to a foot is achieving and maintaining a proper, yet comfortable tension of the closure means. In the past, conventional lace systems, which require an upper to be drawn together at each eyelet by a shoelace and secured by a knot, presented several problems. First, the use of shoelaces causes the pressure of the closure to be concentrated at the relatively small areas of the laces. This creates high pressure at the lace locations, causing significant discomfort to the wearer. As a consequence, shoe tongues are commonly employed to protect the foot against such pressure.
Second, persons with physical disabilities or impairments, such as arthritis, and little children find it difficult to grasp the thin laces, pull the laces to a proper tension, and secure the lace tension with a knot. Thus, physically disabled persons often are forced to wear shoes that merely slip onto their feet and do not properly support them as would a shoe snugly secured. Small children, because they have difficulty tying the laces, often go about with loose, untied laces, risking tripping over the laces and the resulting injuries.
Third, athletes commonly have problems related to standard shoe lace systems. Frequently, laces cut off circulation in an athlete's foot and irritate the top of the foot. This irritation causes swelling and tendon problems. In addition, some athletes, such as long jumpers, must frequently remove their shoes to remove debris from the shoe. Shoes with standard laces require great amounts of time to readjust properly the tension. This problem is compounded if the laces are wet.
Fourth, footwear with high tops, such as basketball shoes or hiking boots, contain many laces, requiring large amounts of time to be spent putting the shoe on and properly adjusting the lace tension. Again, laces that are wet further add to the time required.
An attempt to solve some of these problems in a sport shoe made by Dassler in U.S. Pat. No. 3,626,610 met with only partial success. In Dassler, an athletic shoe has straps with hook material secured to one side of a slot in the upper that extend over the slot to releasably engage cooperating pile material on the opposite edge. The closure straps, however, cause unequal pressure on the foot when fastened. The straps are all pulled to a closed position from the same side. As a result, the side opposite the straps remains relaxed until the straps are fastened, resulting in insufficient or unequal tension in the several straps. Such loose or uneven pressure causes discomfort to the foot and may detract from an athlete's performance.
Other attempts at remedying shoe lace problems such as U.S. Pat. Nos. 201,451 to Sanford and 1,643,106 to Bendelari employed overlapping closure straps for shoes. These shoe fastenings, however, use buttons or buckles and did not allow the ease of tension adjustment flexibility needed or required by many shoe wearers. In addition, these shoe closure systems do not involve a plurality of strap pairs, further limiting their flexibility of tension adjustment.
Another type of closure is shown in Shaw U.S. Pat. No. 3,845,769, which uses bands to tighten unyielding, limb-encircling devices for therapeutic purposes. Each band closure comprises a slot on one end of the band and a tab on the other end that fits through the slot when fastened. Cooperating hook and pile fastening material is located on both the tab and the band adjacent to the slot. The band closure would be ineffective when used on shoes, however, because the closure requires large areas of space to operate properly. The relatively small area available for shoe closure requires that a more compact and efficient closure means be used.